Dissolve Me, Fix Me
by evilsockofghana
Summary: Sometimes Ed can't be fixed or healed.
1. Chapter 1

Breda had spent the last twenty minutes attempting to talk Havoc into playing chess with him. Havoc wasn't going for it; Breda was now trying to bring out his masochistic tendencies, since "you might actually win this time" and "it'll be a learning experience" hadn't worked.

"C'mon, Havoc, you'll enjoy it. You know you will. You'll love every minute of losing. Don't you want to see me happy? You're a good person, right? You like to make other people happy, right? Well, make me happy. It'll make you feel good."

Havoc took a drag on his cigarette.

"You know, I feel like being selfish today."

The door burst open. Havoc and Breda and Falman looked over expectantly, but who walked in was much taller than they were expecting.

"Damn." Muttered Breda. "I can't wait for Ed to get back. I haven't heard Mustang get decently pissed off in _way_ too long."

Fuery shook his head as he shut the door behind him. He had a strange look on his face.

"Ed's in the lobby."

"Good." Grunted Breda, leaning back in his chair and folding his hand behind his head. Fuery shook his head slightly. He took a few steps into the room, and then shook his head again. The movement was almost convulsive. Breda unfolded his arms and leaned forward as the other two frowned.

"What's up, Fuery?" asked Falman.

"Ed doesn't look good." Fuery said quietly. Havoc shrugged.

"You know how the kid gets into trouble. He always gets patched up again." Fuery shook his head again with the same convulsive movement.

"No, he's not hurt. He's…I think he's sick. _Really _sick."

"How sick?"

But before Fuery could answer, Ed himself stepped in, and they had their answer.

"Hey guys. Is Mustang in?"

He was met by three stares. Fuery had looked away.

His fair skin was a gray, pasty white. He eyes looked almost blackened with thick rings under them. He coughed into his hand, and when he looked back up, they saw that his left eye was a bright scarlet, and when he saw them staring, he raised his hand to it.

"I know it looks bad. I've got uveitis, but I'm getting it treated now that I'm back in Central. There shouldn't be any lingering effects."

Havoc relaxed, but only slightly. "It's good that you're getting it treated. I guess it's one of those things that look worse than they are."

He stood as Ed answered. "Yeah. It'll get better."

"You don't look like you've been getting much sleep, Ed." Said Falman. Ed shrugged.

"I've had a bad cough lately. It's been keeping me up. And the long trip wasn't too easy either. I just need some rest and food—after I check in. Where's Mustang?"

Havoc sat back down, feeling more relieved. "He's already left for the day. You should spend the evening resting. You look bad."

Ed laughed a little, but it turned into a cough he smothered with his hand.

"I'll get better. I can't believe he's not in, though, the jerk. After I spent all those months on the border, the least he could do for me was be in his office when I got back. It's not like I hadn't told him the date."

"Probably slacking off, going on a date instead of working." Grumbled Havoc. "You have any luck on your mission?"

Ed shrugged, looking a little uneasy. "Besides picking up every intestinal disease known to man? Nah, not really. I was trying to get some research done, but mostly I got commandeered into battle."

Falman shrugged. "You are a good fighter. I still remember that day you had a match against Mustang."

Ed glowered. "I'll beat him next time. Anyway, I have to go."

He turned and started out the door. 

"Don't get any sicker!" Breda yelled after him. "You're the one who makes it interesting around here!"

Ed raised a hand in response without looking back. "I'll get better." He said quietly, not bothering to wonder if they'd heard.


	2. Chapter 2

Al heard the door slam over the sound of Ed's incessant cough. He looked toward the doorway, and Ed appeared in it a moment later.

"Your cough sounds a lot worse, Ed. You should see a doctor about it."

Ed waved a dismissive hand at him. "Its fine, Al. Don't worry so much."

He walked over to the small desk between their beds and searched around, shuffling papers. Finding a small bottle, he held it up in triumph, than began to administer drops to his eye.

"Your eye doesn't look any better, either." Pursued Al.

"I've only had the drops for a few days. You have to give it time." He dropped the bottle back onto the desk and flopped onto his bed. Al cautiously sat on the edge of his own, watching Ed.

"I'm just worried about your sight. I know you can't see very well on that side."

"I told you, it'll get better. Stop worrying about it." He moved quickly to change the subject. "Mustang wasn't in today. Jerk. I don't know if he thinks I've got nothing better to do than wait for him to actually be in his office during working hours…" he stopped as a spasm of coughing took hold of him. Al started to get up, but Ed waved him off.

Ed groaned softly, clutching a hand to his chest. "We should go to bed." He whispered hoarsely.

Al looked at the clock. It only read six thirty.

He looked back at Ed. "Yeah." He agreed. "Bed would be nice."

-…-

The next time Al looked at the clock, it read two forty. He stood as silently as he could, and walked carefully to Ed's bed. He stood for a moment, looking down at his brother, and started to turn away, when he noticed several dark spots of liquid on Ed's pillow. He didn't move for several long minutes, then swung his head to look toward the door.

He wanted to turn on the light, to see.

He desperately didn't.


	3. Chapter 3

Author's note: I guess I should clear some things up. This isn't set in any particular time, but I can tell you that Hughes won't be showing up. Al is still metal-man and Roy is still a colonel.

"Are you sure you're all right, Ed? That eye looks pretty bad."

Ed smothered a cough in his kerchief, then tucked it back into his pocket.

"I've gotten drops for it. It went untreated for a long time out on the border. It'll get better."

Riza nodded. "As long as you're getting it taken care of. We can't have you getting ill—"

She was interrupted by a spasm of coughing. Ed quickly groped in his pocket for his kerchief, but reaching for it unbalanced him and he stumbled slightly. Riza reached forward and put a steadying hand on his shoulder.

When the coughing subsided, Ed looked back up to see that Riza was giving him a strange look.

"Your shoulder is awfully bony, Ed." She said quietly. Roy frowned. He stood and walked around his desk making his way over to Ed.

Without preamble, he reached forward and slapped his hand onto Ed's chest. Ed leapt back.

"Geez, give a guy a little warning before you go doing that—"

"I can feel your ribs, runt."

It was a testimony to the power of Roy and Riza's stares that Ed didn't protest being called a runt. He looked down at the floor instead. They waited for a long moment.

Ed finally stamped his foot in frustration.

"I'm suffering from malnutrition, okay? Conditions weren't exactly great at the border, you know!"

Riza frowned and started to speak, but Ed cut her off.

"I'll get better now. It'll just take plenty of food and rest."

"Well, Ed, if that's what you need, the colonel is willing to give you a break," here she put a hand to the butt of her gun and gave Roy a pointed look. "But I wonder whether you're willing to give yourself that time. You're very prone to overworking yourself. You should be more like the colonel."

"Ha ha." Roy frowned at Riza, who didn't look at him. He turned back to Ed. "I'm concerned about this. Malnutrition can cause complications, and it looks as though you've already got some."

He gave Ed a meaningful look as the boy started to cough again.

"I just need some time, that's all. I'll—" here they saw his eyes widen, and they could hear an audible gulp. "I'll get better."

The odd look remained on his face throughout the rest of the time he was in Roy's office.

-…-

Ed dashed down the steps and swerved to the side, darting into an alley. Finding a stoop, he sat down and shuddered.

"I've never coughed anything up before." He said to himself. "Maybe I should get this checked out."

A deep feeling of foreboding felt like it was making its way up from his toes. He stood up quickly and shook the notion away with a shake of his head.

"It's fine. Just a cough. It's not going away because of the malnutrition. Once I get my weight back up, it'll go away.

"I'll get better."

-…-

Al sat in a chair, polishing his head and waiting for Ed to come home. Every few minutes he glanced toward the bedroom.

Finally unable to stand it any longer, he set his head back on his shoulders and made his way into their room.

He stepped over several papers and walked over to Ed's bed. He stood there for a moment, staring down at the pillow.

It was a pure white.

He turned back toward the door, relieved.

But he halted in the doorway. He started to turn.

He turned away.

-…-

Al was sitting on his bed in the dark when Ed came in the front door, slamming it as usual.

He heard Ed sigh as he shed his cloak and boots, and heard the bed squeak as Ed flopped down onto it.

He heard the soft shuffle of Ed turning the pillow over.


	4. Chapter 4

Authors note: I redid this chapter because it sucked. Really bad. The text is still the same, but I edited out all of Ed's jumbled thoughts I'd stuck in. Stephen King can do it, I can't. It's much better this way, though still a little odd in places.

Ed woke up and immediately went into the bathroom to take a shower, for he woke with a tangled ball of despair deep in his belly, awoke with the thought, _he knows_, so he took a shower to let the hot water wash it away.

It didn't help. He leaned against the shower wall and coughed and swallowed and didn't let himself think about what he was swallowing, but it slid down his throat to rest with the ball in his stomach and after he got dressed he went to Roy's office.

He did not allow himself to think about what he was doing. It was as though his goal for the morning was not to allow a single thought in, for if one came in so many others would come crowding in that he would not be able to do anything, so he went to Roy's office and did not say anything to anyone that he saw on the way.

It was not the black pits that his eyes sat in that were twisting his guts into a knot that felt it would never be untied. It was something else, and even when Roy looked at him and asked what he wanted, he almost could not say it, and was glad for the spasm of coughing that covered the weak feeling in his knees and the burning in his eyes.

Roy repeated his question, standing up behind his desk, and Ed took in a breath to answer, sucked in a breath, and felt ashamed of how it was almost a sob.

"Mustang…I'm scared." Ed was almost doubled over, his arms crossed tightly over the knot, trying to press it into oblivion.

"I'm coughing so much and…and…"

Mustang said nothing, only waited, and Ed realized that the longer he stayed silent the harder it would be, so he said it, and saying it made everything too real and then he really did start to cry, standing there hunched over, feeling very alone.

"There's been blood on my pillow."

And in a moment Roy was there, shaking his shoulders, his voice full of rage.

"Shit, Fullmetal, you have to see the doctor about this!"

It was then that Ed realized his mistake. He should not have come; he should not have said anything. If he had just kept on pretending, everything would eventually become real. It wouldn't matter how much he had lied to Al, lied to everyone, because the lies would become truth. He would get better.

He pulled away from Roy, stumbling toward the door, desperate to return to a life that was worth living.

"No—I'm fine—I shouldn't have come, it's all right, I'm all right—"

"You're _not_!"

Ed stopped, shaken by the violence in Roy's voice. Outside the office, the hum of conversation died and did not start up again. Roy did not leave room for any more words, simply grabbed Ed's arm and hauled him away, shoving the door open with an elbow.

"Hawkeye! You're coming with me!"

She fell into place behind him, saying nothing, asking nothing, but had Ed looked up, he would have seen the questions in the eyes that followed their progress.

He did not look up. He simply trailed in Roy's wake, hauled along by an arm that he knew would be bruised later, and the knot was still there, but still, he felt relieved, felt almost glad to be helpless and felt disgusted at feeling glad, but he could not pull out of Roy's grip.

When he did look up, they were in a waiting room and Roy was commanding a nurse with a look to melt stone, and then he was whisked into a room and ordered to strip, and here was where he balked.

"I'll turn around," offered Riza, but it was Roy who knew what the problem was and Roy who said it.

"We already know how thin you are, idiot."

And after that there was no reason in hiding so he shed his cloak and boots and then his shirt and pants and felt a savage gladness when he heard Riza gasp. _See! _He thought with a perverse triumph. _I _am_ sick. _It plummeted immediately into a numb apathy, for it was the first time he'd said it. _I am sick._

The doctor looked at him, his face stony, and Ed looked around the room, but when he finally found himself looking at his hands resting on his knees and found himself filled with an absent wonder at their skeletal appearance he closed his eyes and submitted to the doctor's poking and prodding, hearing his questions and the answers provided by Roy and Riza.

His eyelids fluttered but did not open when a question was directed at him.

"You say you've found blood on your pillow."

He nodded.

"You've had constant coughing."

He nodded again, though it hadn't sounded like a question.

"Open your eyes." Said the doctor, and he did, looking straight into a frowning face.

"You have uveitis. It's common for it to be caused by a different, underlying disease." He reached and touched Ed's arm, the one made of flesh.

"I can see where muscles used to be. You were a strong boy, weren't you?"

_Aren't you._

"Yes." Riza answered for him.

"People who are strong inside and out don't have to worry about some things. But people who have been weakened…"

"…weakened by malnutrition." Finished Riza. Finished, but it was only the beginning. Ed shut his eyes again.

"Have you been sweating a lot lately?"

_It's hot on the border. You sleep with your clothes on, and you sweat through them. I've still slept in my clothes, it's made me hot in my sleep. _The justifications swept through his head, but the truth was there, and though he tried to block the thought out it came anyway. I_'ve been sleeping in my clothes to hide from Al how thin I am and it isn't very hot out, is it, it's been getting cold lately, the weather's turning, I think it's going to rain later._ He reined in his babbling thoughts as a drop of sweat slid down the side of face and effectively answered the question.

"You're pale, you have bags under your eyes, and blood on your pillow. You suffered from malnutrition in a war-torn area of the country, and it weakened your immune system. You have a classic case."

Ed opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling. "I'm from the country." He heard himself saying, for no real reason that he could think of.

"Then I'll use the country word for it. I'll have to send in tests, but they'll only confirm what I already know. You're consumptive, boy."

Ed hopped off the table and began to pull on his clothes.

"Consumptive? What does that mean?" he heard Riza asking.

"You'd be more familiar with the more formal name for it."

He ran out the door with no shirt on, but he could still hear the voice of the doctor following him, and Roy's footsteps trailing after him.

"Tuberculosis."


	5. Chapter 5

AN: Ernnnn….I've been avoiding this update. Sorry it's so short, but that's where it ended. The next chapter will have Ed and almost nothing but, I promise. And it'll be long.

Roy could hear his footsteps echo down the empty street. They measured the moments, slowly. The weather was cooperating with his heart. The stone beneath his feet was wet, the sky was a deep gray, and mist obscured the horizon.

_Damn you, Fullmetal._

He stared up at the dark sky, then brought his silver watch and flicked it open. Only six o clock. Edward had been missing since running out of the doctor's office around ten o clock that morning. Roy let out a short puff of air that might have been a brusque sigh and tucked his watch back into his pocket. He wouldn't bother having someone look for him until the next morning, at least.

Still, Roy hoped Edward might be in the small house he had just stopped in front of. The walk to the military housing area had never seemed so long. Most military families moved out of the area as soon as possible; Edward and Alphonse had never bothered.

_Damn you for making me take up your responsibility._

He straightened his collar a miniscule amount, braced his shoulders as though preparing for a blow, and knocked on the door.

There was a moment of heavy footsteps, and Alphonse opened the door. Roy kept his face passive.

"Is Fullmetal here?"

"No, I haven't seen Nii-san since this morning."

Alphonse sounded so worried. Roy swallowed and directed his next words to Alphonse's featureless metal chest.

"I need to speak to you, regarding him. May I come in?"

_Damn you, Fullmetal!_

Alphonse moved aside without speaking, and Roy stepped in.

"I'm afraid it's bad news…"


End file.
